Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top (35 page)

“That’ll never happen now, as I’m sure you’ve deduced. So there is my gift to you: the knowledge of what you had and lost. Some people never realize such mysteries for themselves. It’s a great boon. Cradle it to you as you cradle her, and let’s move on. You know, I think we’ll only see one more exhibit. Maybe two. It’s different for everyone, but you and your lover took the least time yet. Interesting.”

With that, Seth skipped forward, vanishing through the next curtain.

Still shaking with sobs, clinging to Erin’s stirring body like a life-raft, Josh followed.

“Don’t wake up, Ez,” Josh crooned into her flat hair. “Just keep sleeping, love.”

But she did wake, twitching in his arms until he gently placed her on her feet. She looked at him with fathomless black eyes and his mind gave a final tilt, swinging him in earnest toward madness.

“Are we free?” she said. “Did we get out? Has it all gone away?”

“I’m afraid not, my dear. But you’re lucky enough to have awoken in time to see the next exhibit.” Seth sounded bored. He plopped his dummy into his mouth and gnawed at it as if it were a juicy bone, sucking and slurping with abandon.

Erin’s face drooped.

Seth spoke around his dummy, the words mangled and wet. “Without further ado, may I introduce . . . Salioso’s room of Doppelgangers! Of course, since you’re a smaller group than we’re used to, there are only two here today, but I’m sure they’ll prove extremely entertaining nonetheless.”

Barely bothering to complete the flourish of his hand, Seth crossed the mirrored room and sat on one of the wooden chairs on the opposite side, the only furnishings in the chamber. One of the mirrors shimmered and wavered, and two figures stepped out.

Josh gasped. Erin stared, flat-eyed.

Their precise doubles stood facing them. Erin’s had her newly straight brown hair and black eyes, but, unlike Erin, throbbed with life and energy—and was completely naked. She taunted Erin, gyrating inches from her, cupping her nude breasts and leering, her pink tongue lashing over her ruby lips.

“Cold, dead fish,” the thing sneered. “I’m more than you ever were. He never wanted you. He always wanted me. He saw
me
when he looked at you. I’m here now. You’re as good as dead. Ugly, stupid bitch!”

The creature leant forward on the final word and spat in Erin’s face. The saliva slithered down Erin’s cheek as she stood motionless. Furious, Josh slapped the woman-thing open handed across the face. Far from deterred, the creature dropped into a crouch and clasped Josh’s calf, rubbing herself against him, panting.

“Oh, you know I like it rough,” it moaned. The thing’s hands were hot and its body was slick; Josh felt his own body respond despite himself. “You were thinking about giving it to me rough, remember, in the Long Chat Place? You wanted me then. You want me now. Stay here, lover, and have me! Have me as long and as hard and as often as you want. Anything you like. I want you. She’s nothing compared to me. It’s me you’ve wanted. Take me!”

The thing reached for his belt and unbuckled it in one smooth pull. He wavered, Big Feelings flooding his brain while blood rushed to his groin. She felt amazing. Her hand made his closed zipper a distant memory and he felt the cool air on his bare legs as she tore his jeans off. He rocked back on his heels as her fingers grasped him, as her sex massaged his leg, as her lips wrapped around him . . .

Then he heard the distinctive sound of a punch next to him, followed by a muffled moan and tearing fabric.

“No! Stop! Please, Josh, don’t hurt me!”

Did Erin really see that man-thing—and whatever it was trying to do to her—as being
him
?

Did
he
really see the thing kneeling before him now as
her
?

With a snarl, he shoved the female Doppelganger’s head away from him and turned to Erin. The male Doppelganger—the Josh-thing—had her on the floor, one hand gripping her throat, the other yanking the remains of her skirt from her. The creature was naked like its female counterpart.

“Get away from her,” Josh roared, aiming a massive kick at the creature’s head. His boot connected with a jarring thud and the thing rolled over several times, coming to rest against the wall.

Sinuous, tempting arms clutched his shoulders from behind, and a velvet voice murmured in his ear. “That was gallant. I’ve always loved your chivalrous side. You’ll slip into me like a hot knife into butter. I’ll never leave you, never deny you, not like
her
. I’m soft and delicious, but I’m hard and strong, too. You can do what you like to me and I’ll bounce right back—and I’ll
love
it.”

The thing’s tongue snaked from its plump lips and lapped at Josh’s earlobe. He shuddered, a jolt of white heat rocketing through his body and numbing his mind. He wanted to turn and grab the creature, throw it to the ground, and climb aboard. He wanted to say the dirtiest, vilest, evilest things to it and watch its face as he did. He wanted to hurt it and love it and own it. He wanted . . . he wanted . . . want . . .

“Josh,” Erin whispered from the floor.

He wanted to
kill
.

He spun around and tore the creature’s spindly arms from his shoulders. He saw surprise on the Doppelganger’s face as it turned to run. Before it could get away, he reached out and caught a fistful of brown, lank hair. The creature screeched and flailed, twisting away from him.

Josh stepped forward, hooking one foot under the Doppelganger’s pedaling feet and pulling them out from under the thing. The pseudo-Erin fell face-first to the floor, howling. Not hesitating, Josh dropped one knee into the creature’s back and landed with the full force of his body right between its jutting shoulder blades.

As the woman-thing gave a final scream, Josh released the creature’s hair and reached forward, grasping its chin in one hand and forehead in the other, and

yanked

back.

The creature’s neck broke. After the loud
snap
, all was still and silent at last.

“Interesting,” Seth commented from his perch. “A waste, to be sure. She was a delight. But . . . very interesting indeed.”

Josh fell back from the dead creature in disgust and crawled toward Erin. She sat in the tatters of her skirt, her arms wrapped around herself, black eyes bottomless and her face slack. When he neared her, her mouth twitched, but she said nothing.

“I’m so sorry, Ez,” he croaked. “I love you, and I wish I’d never brought you in here. I wish I’d been strong enough to stand up to the Big Feelings and to Seth, but you know he was always my weakness and my release, and I couldn’t deny him.” He was babbling gibberish now, and yet, it made sense and it was important that she hear him, where ever she’d gone.

“Heads up,” Seth remarked casually.

Josh only had a moment to look up before the male Doppelganger’s fist knocked him onto his back. His jaw rang with pain, and the world blurred into a hazy web of yellow.

“She’s mine,” snarled the Doppelganger. “Always was. Always will be. I own the bitch. What’s left of her, anyway. What’s left will do just fine for my purposes.”

The thing’s laughter was oily and low, oozing like pus.

Rage propelled Josh up and at the creature. It was waiting for him, dropped low in a fighting crouch, its appendage dangling like an added insult between its muscular thighs. It was him, of course, but . . . better, harder, stronger, and with far more hatred than he’d ever felt for anything pumping through its supernatural veins.

He hit it head-on, and it fell, crushed under his body. Without pausing to think, he made his thumb and forefinger into prongs and rammed them into the thing’s eyes. He felt the membrane burst, and pushed on, through the jelly and oozing liquid, into the squiggly mush of the creature’s brain. He ground everything his fingers touched to a fine paste. The creature screamed, gurgled, and finally fell silent. Its body jerked under him. The sensation was revoltingly intimate. He rolled off and staggered to his feet, gasping for breath.

The Big Feelings were quiet, and for a moment he cruised, drifting on the blissful waves of nothingness.

“Well,” Seth said, standing. “I think we’re just about done. Let’s adjourn for our final business, shall we? If you could help Ms. Duhammond to her feet, we’ll be on our way.”

Josh reached down and pulled Erin into his arms for the last time. She felt like a bag of feathers. She was almost gone. He squeezed her and it was like hugging a cloud of vapor. She was diminishing as the seconds ticked by. Whatever had been Erin Duhammond was almost extinct.

And he’d done it.

His tears formed a shimmering curtain, shrouding his eyes as Seth led him and the bundle of skin and bones he carried through the last red velvet curtain in Salioso’s House of Monsters, Moste Grotesk and Phantastique.

“Don’t touch her,” Josh said. “No more of your payments. You’ve taken enough.”

“Yes, I have. Payment has been made in full. I took the final one while you enjoyed your time with Ms. Duhammond’s Doppelganger. You didn’t even notice.”

(the softness of your skin)

The life was gone from Erin. It winked out in her black eyes as Josh looked down on her, and then, without a sound, she disappeared.

“What have you done with her?” Josh fell to his knees, tears burning his cheeks like acid rain.

“I haven’t done a thing. You did it all, Josh. You made choices every step of the way. You followed your desires and your impulses. You designed and delivered the payment. I merely obliged you. Erin is now part of Salioso’s show. And so are you.”

The room around them was bare: yellow walls, yellow floor, yellow ceiling. No furniture. Average size. But it was gravid with life; it ebbed and flowed and bent and stretched before Josh’s eyes. It was almost as if it itched to take shape, but waited for direction.

“Where is she?” Josh’s voice was a whisper. His tears had dried up.

“Nowhere, as far as you’re concerned. Although I rather think she might form part of your exhibit. I have a sense for these things, after the time I’ve spent here.”

Twirling his dummy on its chain, the little man broke into a whistle. He strolled to the far end of the room and pressed his hand to the wall. It melted at his touch, exposing a gaping hole. He stepped into it and threw Josh a cheery wave.

“Farewell, young Josh. I’ll see you again. So many souls come to Salioso’s House, and they’re all eager for a show. You’ll entertain a great number of them, forever and forever and forever. You and your Big Feelings, boogeying on down in the ultimate Big Top. It’s a beautiful thing. Oh, look. Your exhibit is taking shape. And yes, there she is. Splendid.”

“Who is Salioso?” Josh’s lips were stiffening, and his brain seemed to be grinding to a halt. He forced the words out, knowing they were probably his last.

“You asked that a little late, m’boy! And it really doesn’t matter. He’s no one and nothing you’d understand. But he owns you. And, unlike you, Josh, he never gives up that which is his.”

The wall closed with a
thud
, and Seth was gone.

Josh had been wrong. As his body snapped and cracked, driving him across the room and into a position outside his control—as his brain petrified and changed, motivating him in ways he could not override—his
real
last words slipped from between his bloodying lips.

“Ez,” he sighed. “Erin.”

“Step right this way, please! Keep together now, this one gets a bit messy and I wouldn’t want you to get lost in the spatter. Yes, that’s right, sit down there, nice and comfy. All settled? Good, we’ll begin. Allow me to introduce—the Cutting Man!”

The dwarfish entertainer, now wearing a garish purple tutu and leotard, his tattooed bald head shining in the light reflected from the yellow canvas, motioned grandly to the stage at the front of the long room. A group of twenty people sat spellbound, gazing up at it, waiting for their entertainment to commence. The tutu-clad man’s eyes roamed the crowd, and, unseen, he made a gun out of his thumb and forefinger and mimed shooting each person in the head. The nametag on his left breast read HI! MY NAME IS STEVE-O! Josh would have told the crowd that he’d known the man as Seth once upon a nightmare, but he was unable. It didn’t matter, anyway.

Josh stood on the stage, still, quiet, waiting. In his hand, a giant scalpel—so big it was more of a sword—sparkled. Etched in large black letters on the blade was the word
Seth
. He raised the blade at a right angle to his body and paused. She wasn’t here yet.

The crowd was hushed. A little boy whispered to his mother and she shushed him, not wanting to miss a moment of the coming show.

Ah. There.

Erin crossed the stage on gliding feet, her diaphanous white gown billowing behind her. Her hair was a glossy brown, plentiful with curls. Her eyes were grey and bright. Her skin was flushed with beauty and life. Her smile was wide and generous, and her hand was on her heart.

It always began this way.

“I love you,” he told her. As he uttered the words, his hand swung above his head, and brought the vicious blade down on Erin. It struck with an audible
crack
, cleaving her skull in two. Her head stayed stubbornly on her body, branching off in two directions like a forked tongue. Her hand—small, pale, delicate—jerked away from her heart and fluttered to her wounded head. The gash was clean, and she smiled at him around it.

“I love you, too,” she said. She felt no pain.

Josh took it all.

He felt the fountain of blood spurt from his own head, felt the searing, crippling agony. He swayed on his feet, but didn’t—couldn’t—fall. He would not be permitted to collapse to the ground until this was over. Until she was a twitching, unrecognizable pile of pieces on the floor, and he was a red geyser of suffering.

His love was his blade, and he scored them both with it, but he felt the pain. For that, at least, he was thankful.

“Mummy, is it real?” The little boy was crying.

His mother’s voice was shocked, but calm. “Of course not, darling. It’s just a show. The nice man
might
have warned us it wasn’t going to be suitable for children—” she threw a shrewish look over her shoulder at “STEVE-O”, who smiled disarmingly in response, “—but it’s not real. You just hide your face in Mummy’s shoulder here, and—”